DR file not being updated for Intelligent Disaster Recovery

My backup jobs are failing due to the ".DR file that is required for Intelligent Disaster Recovery is not updated" error.

Actually, it is the other way round.  Your jobs failed so the .dr file is not updated.  You got to solve the job failure so that the .dr file will be updated.

If your jobs truly are failing just because of the DR file message, then check that the alternate DR file location does exist as if you specify a location that does not actually existing it can cause problems creating the file in the first place.

Also if this job has more than one server in the backup selection list then test with one server at a time as I think we have seen in the past if one server in a job legitimately cannot create a DR file, then all the subsequent servers in the job will also fail it.

Finally PKH is correct if the job does have a problem with a component on the server, this might cause the DR file error and you should troubleshoot this other problem instead of the .dr message.

Well from what I understand, what happens is once the backup comes across a corrupt file it will not be able to update the DR file, and once one server in the backup gets this error it will cause the same error an all the existing backups.

The issue is that the corrupt file it keeps coming across are usually Outlook .pst archive files that just happen to be open by the user at the time of the backup.

There has to be a way that it will force the .DR file to be created/updated even if it comes across a corrupt file.

No. Once there is a failure, the .dr file will not be updated.  It is no point updating the .dr file to point to a failed backup.  BE would not know whether the failure is due to 1 file or a complete failure.

Have you tried either enabling AOFO or excluding the .pst file?

We have not enabled AOFO, but I am going to try using the "Open file backup when Advanced Open File Option is not used" Never option. I believe this option allows a backup to skip any file that is open duing backup operations.

We have not enabled AOFO

Why not?  It would be easier to enable AOFO.

To explain why not, basically it's because I'm new to BE and I don't fully understand AOFO, I've read up on it and it sounds like something that we would benefit from but I have questions about it.

I'm using BE 2010 R3, so what all is involved in installing AOFO or is it simply just checking a few boxes in Options to turn it on? Does it increase the size of my backups due to snapshots? and does it require installing any snapshot utlilities on my other servers that are being backed up?

Thank you, appreciate the help.

Ok thanks pkh, I will try this and see if it resolves the issue.